Additional information about gender quotas

 Women in Jordan have had the right to vote since 1974. The quota system was introduced in the 2003 elections through amendments to Article 11 of the electoral law of 2001. The amended legislation provided a quota provision reserving six of the 110 seats (5.45 per cent) for women in the national parliament. These six seats were allocated to those women candidates who had achieved the highest percentage of all votes cast in their respective constituencies, apart from women who may have been elected in direct elections. Only one woman was elected directly in 2007.

After the House of Representatives was dissolved in November 2009 by King Abdullah II, the Cabinet adopted a new ‘temporary’ election law in May 2010 for the elections in November 2010, raising the number of reserved seats for women from 6 to 12 (reserving one seat per each of the 12 governorates). Following the introduction of this increased number of reserved seats for women, 13 women were elected in the National Assembly — 12 through a women’s quota and one through a direct election in Amman’s Third District (2010).

As part of the 2012 electoral reforms, the quota for women was increased to 15 seats for the January 2013 elections, while the statutory number of members of the House of Representatives was increased to 150. In the 2013 elections, 18 women were elected to parliament — 15 through the reserved seats (12 from each governorate and three from the Bedouin or ‘Badia’ districts), two as part of the proportional representation lists, and one through the majoritarian system in the districts.

King Abdullah dissolved the House of Representatives in September 2020 in light of elections in November. 360 women stood for the elections, compared to 252 back in 2016, yet solely 15 were elected of which all to reserved seats, implying a decrease from the 20 that were elected in 2016.